


The Temptation and/or Salvation of St. Helena of Constantinople

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ancient Rome, Christianity, Gen, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 18:04:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7372045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley is sent to Drepana to find the mother of the next great Emperor of Rome, currently (one of the) Helena(s) the stable maid of Drepana. He might or might not find her, but he does find someone much more familiar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Temptation and/or Salvation of St. Helena of Constantinople

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitsunealyc](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunealyc/gifts).



> To my recipient -- I hope you like this! It's not really _Biblical_ tradition but the lives of the saints definitely constitute Christian tradition.
> 
> If you'd like the historical notes and disclaimers before the fic instead of after, check the bottom notes. In general, I apologize for sloppy historical accuracy, and defend myself with the example of canon. 
> 
> Mouse over footnote numbers for text.

Theoretically, the mother of the next great Emperor of Rome should have been easy to locate and hard to reach, shut up in some gynaecum with the rest of her immediate female family members and hard at work at, say... weaving, or... doing her sisters' hair, or... something; here Crowley's imagination failed him.

Not that he was completely unfamiliar with the events in women's quarters, but he was traditionally involved in the less virtuous ones. [1]

“She's a stable maid in Drepana,” Hastur said when Crowley protested his assignment. “Or whatever that's a euphemism for. Pay whatever she charges and talk to her for for the time it gets you for all I care. Just get going.”

Hastur's lip curled there. He obviously was not thrilled with the specifics of this assignment, as impeccable as the logic behind it might be.

Which it was. Obviously. Because the Dark Council had dictated it. Crowley rubbed his face and went. To Drepana.

And then rapidly back to Hell as he discovered the Drepana he'd been thinking of was clearly on the wrong side of the Empire completely, on the end of the Italian peninsula. Five minutes of clarification and uncomfortable proximity with a number of flies (theoretically a perfectly pleasant state of being for a demon, but Crowley had picked up a number of human traits in his time as a field agent, and a distaste for carrion insects was as far as he was concerned one of the better) he was off again.

This time, he went to Thrace, or what had been Thrace last time he had bothered to show up in the area.

It turned out there were a lot of stable maids in Drepana. (Drepana, Bithynia, though that was probably true of Drepana, Sicily, as well.)

There were a lot of Helenas in Drepana, too, though not many of them seemed to be stable maids. Or  _stable_ maids. Fortunately. 

Crowley spent three days sampling various inns' alcohol stocks, using the time to conclude he might want to keep an eye on Thracian wine. There was not been a single Helena in any one of them. 

On the one hand, that meant he couldn't complete his task. On the other hand, if he  _did_ find a Helena he had no idea how he was going to work out if it was the  _correct_ Helena. He could hardly just go up to one and say, “Hey, you, any plans to become the consort of the Emperor of Rome?”

But this state of affairs could not continue indefinitely, and sure enough, on the fourth day his luck ran out.

“Sssay,” he said, hissing only slightly and only very slightly sloshed. He directed this remark to the young woman currently refilling his dish and artfully allowing a loose pin on the shoulder of her tunic to slide slowly out of place until one corner fell down and exposed most of her breast.

Crowley failed to notice this entirely. “There wouldn't be a Helena working here, would there?”

The young woman, somewhat offended, very nearly claimed to be Helena herself. This would have put into motion a series of unlikely events that could have culminated in the conversion of the Roman Empire to the exclusive worship of the Thracian deity Zalmoxis and various less important colleagues of his.

Ultimately, though, she was a fairly good-natured type of person who liked her coworkers too much to divert a possible regular from one of them. Instead she resolved to try to imitate the prettier Helena's hairdressing and said, “Two, actually. You looking for the tall one or the one with red hair?”

Here, Crowley's planning again failed him.

He spent a moment staring drunkenly into the pin, about six inches off the sight she had meant to divert him; it was shaped like a snake and had green eyes that were possibly emerald but much more likely glass. He rather liked the pin. It rather resembled him. The woman clearly had good taste.

“The tall one,” he said upon realizing he was going to have to answer her at some point. He hazarded this guess on the strength of the speculation that should the Emperor Constantine inherit her looks height sounded more imperial than red hair. “I think. Could you point them both out?”

The young woman said, “That's the tall Helena over there, talking to the sailor, in the blue. I don't see the one with red hair anywhere, I think she might have gone out to the stables [2] \-- no, there she is! She just came in!”

Crowley followed the helpfully extended finger of the young woman, whose name was in fact Aspasia, to the doorway. Then he groaned loudly at the person in the company of the red-haired Helena.

“Isn't she the one you wanted?” Aspasia said.

“ _She_ is, _he_ isn't,” Crowley said, and put down his cup. “Thanksss for the food,” he announced, and stood up. His head rushed unpleasantly as he collected the alcohol out of his bloodstream. He would need to be sober for this.

“You'd better not get into a fight over her,” said Aspasia, whose loyalty to her coworkers in the face of angry sailors [3] and unruly drunks was truly commendable. “She can't help who she sees.”

Crowley would have ignored this pronouncement, except that he found himself barred from continuing over by nearly six feet of tall, sober and annoyed inn worker.

“Look,” he said, “I'm not here to – um, patronize her. I've got to talk to her. Message and all,” he added, improvising, “From a relative. So no jealous fist fight, promise.”

“And the relative told you to find Helena of Aison's Inn, but didn't give you a description?” Aspasia said.

Crowley considered how to answer this, and very nearly put her off, or simply pushed by her and left, before it occurred to him that just in case the Helena the angel was currently talking to was  _not_ the future St. Helena Augusta, mother of Constantine the Great, it might be a very good thing to have someone who actually knew the other women of her profession on his side.

“Worse than that, actually,” he said. “He told me “Helena in Drepana, she's a stable maid.” I've been here three days. No idea if I've found her yet.”

“So you've just been going around and telling the message to all the Helenas you find who are stable maids? One at a time, at every inn with a stable?”

“Pretty much,” Crowley said, neglecting to mention that these two were the first.

“That's a terrible plan,” said Aspasia. “At least you could gather them up and ask.”

“There isn't a list of all the Helenas who are stable maids in Drepana, how could I?” said Crowley, who had spent several hours sneaking into the offices of city officials just in case there was one.

“Well, I'll go and ask at the other inns for you,” Aspasia said, and then paused hopefully and pointedly.

Crowley might have missed her strategic wardrobe maneuvers, but that had been after several dozen cups of really excellent wine. He fumbled for his purse and tapped out several coins without bothering to check the denominations, metals or issuing governments. [4]

Aspasia's expression, bearing, and general outlook on the near and distant future brightened considerably. She left with a positive skip in her step.

Crowley tried not to watch this. Just to make himself feel better, he thought about all of the anger, aggravation and general bad intentions that would happen during daily commutes for the next few years, as he had ensured the local roads would not, in fact, be repaired.

Then he set off towards Aziraphale, who had just finished discussing matters with the red-haired Helena.

“So mind you be careful with those sailors, dear,” he was saying. “And, er--”

“Use protection,” Crowley said, sliding into the conversation.

Aziraphale shot him a look. So did the red-haired Helena. The former look was a glare; the second a rather interested one.

“And there's no need for _you_ to go about talking her into taking back her word,” Aziraphale said, pulling Crowley from the conversation.

Helena (the red-haired) chose this moment for a tactical retreat. 

“What word would that be?” asked Crowley, who had had a dubious feeling about this assignment even before the angel proceeded to make things more complicated by existing in his general area. “Her word to maintain her allegiances to the gods of her ancestors? Can you even _ask_ that?”

Aziraphale's look changed from hostile to rather puzzled.

“Her word to convert to the worship of one God and renounce idols, of course,” he said. “And all those other things the Thracians do I can't keep track of – sun worship and orgiastic rites and all--”

“I'm pretty sure any orgiastic rites she's conducting aren't in the name of deities,” said Crowley distractedly. His dubious feelings were turning into outright doubts at this point. [5] “But – look. You just converted her?”

“That would be the idea,” Aziraphale said. “And a very intelligent woman too. Credit to the faith. She was just telling me about this work of philosophy--”

“Future mother of Constantine the Great?” Crowley cut in, before Aziraphale could begin telling him about books (His favorite subject for the several millenia since writing had been invented).

“That would be the _idea,_ ” Aziraphale said, face turning again to worry and puzzlement. “I'm not completely sure it's _this_ Helena, I mean, there do seem to be rather a lot of them employed in her – ah – profession, but I'm sure it's got to be _one_ of them, and I don't see that there's any harm in converting the lot. I'm sure they'll all do _something_ for the Church, I mean.”

“Have you just been going around the city finding every woman in a stable or inn named Helena and asking her to accept God and forsake her gods?” Crowley said, abruptly derailed from the path his thoughts had been taking.

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said. “Given the – ah – paucity of instruction, it seemed like the thing to do. I can't see any harm in it – spreading virtue, after all!”

“No harm! -- _angel,_ ” Crowley hissed quietly.  [6] “Christianity is _illegal_ in the Empire.”

“Only sort of,” Aziraphale pointed out. “It rather depends on the Emperor, doesn't it?”

“Sooner or later one of the wrong ones is going to get offended and – never mind,” Crowley said helplessly. “Look. You _can't_ have been told to convert Helena mother of Constantine. So was _I_.”

There was an awkward silence, punctuated by moaning from several tables down, and the unpleasant sound of fists thudding into flesh from the other side of the regrettably thin walls. After several moments, somewhere in the kitchens, a dish hit the floor and shattered.

“You can't have been,” Aziraphale said, bewildered. “Saving souls isn't a job for a demon.”

“Oh, sure, but then there's _long term effects,_ ” Crowley said. “I'm supposed to make sure she's Christian because then the Emperor will be as well, see, and then the Church eventually becomes a tool of imperial propaganda and war and is subverted into infamy and decadence or... something.”

He was rather unclear on this point. It seemed unlikely that having one god instead of several million would have any effect on Rome whatsoever, good  _or_ bad, and it wasn't as though the church's current priests had impressed him as men of greater or more inferior virtue than the average sort the one time he had bothered to have a look. But orders were orders.

“That _can't_ be right,” Aziraphale said, now outright distressed. “I'm supposed to make sure she and Constantine convert so the church can be taken onto its rightful path at the right hand of the Empire and lead it onto a path of virtue!”

Another awkward silence followed. The punching outside transitioned into moaning noises to match the ones to their left.

“Rome,” Crowley said flatly. “ _Virtuous_.”

“It did sound a bit unlikely to me,” Aziraphale admitted, absently turning his cup. “But you know. Ineffability, and all.”

“You know, _orders,_ ” Crowley muttered.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, brightening again and setting down the cup. “Heaven or Hell, I still can't see that there's any _harm_ to be done in saving souls, so I suppose there's no need for me to thwart you this once. And with two of us we can talk to all of the Helenas in this city in half the time. There's supposed to be another one in this – fine establishment, would you like to go, er, tempt her to Christ?”

He said the last bit with entirely too much amusement for Crowley's tastes. Crowley very nearly stalked out of the bar at that.

But ineffability or orders, whatever you wanted to call it, there was no getting  _out_ of it. And it was true that as it was he had no idea which Helenas Aziraphale had already talked to. And the rest would be faster with two of them.

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “What have you been telling them, anyway?”

Aspasia was making her way back through the crowd towards them, so he supposed several more Helenas were about to be available for tempting, or saving.

“Just that Helena of Drepana will marry a Roman named Constantius when he's stationed to Asia Minor, and he'll spot her wearing an identical silver bracelet to his own and swear she's his soul mate, and he'll be elevated as Augustus and father a child who will become the sole Emperor, abolish the tetrarchy and name her Augusta,” Aziraphale said, matter-of-factly.

Crowley stared.

“Well, there's no harm in making salvation sound _appealing,_ ” Aziraphale said defensively. “I mean, that's what the idea of Heaven's all about in their books, isn't it?”

“You mean to tell me that when Constantius arrives in Drepana he's going to be set upon by an army of Helenas employed as stable maids and wearing silver bracelets,” Crowley said.

“Well, I don't know about an _army,_ ” Aziraphale said. “I've spoken to about five so far.”

Aspasia had at this point successfully navigated the crowded room. She joined them and cleared her throat.

“So,” she said when she had their attention. “I've found the Helenas from the bars across the street. How do you want to do this? I figure we can get them all in a group and you can tell them all the message at once, and we'll see if it makes sense to any of them, or I can take them in to talk to you one at a time.”

Crowley looked at Aziraphale. Aziraphale looked back.

“Better be one at a time, I think,” Crowley said wearily.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I was originally going to write this about Constantine, having a vague memory of the vision with the cross and all, but it turns out that his mother was Christian and it's generally agreed he probably got his sympathies from her. Ergo, St. Helena instead of St. Constantine.
> 
> As for the subject of stable maids, inns in the Classical era had a reputation for being as much or more brothels than inns. I don't know that the real Helena was a sex worker, but the only historical source(s) about her early life apparently describe her as a stable maid/inn worker, which in this context, along with the later confusion about whether she was Constantius's wife or concubine, can be considered suggestive if not in any way definitive.
> 
> Mandatory disclaimer: Constantine did not Christianize the Empire, and he wasn't even the first to allow Christians to practice openly, but he might have been the first Christian Emperor and he's definitely the one people remember.


End file.
